


Bombshell

by PumpkinDoodles



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bombshell! Darcy, Classic Hollywood References, Ephemera - Freeform, F/M, Lists, Notes, The Bombshell Manual of Style is a real book
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-02 19:36:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16793416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinDoodles/pseuds/PumpkinDoodles
Summary: Thinking that she needs a little glamour to improve her romantic options, Darcy Lewis decides to rearrange her life according to a how-to guide for classic Hollywood bombshells. Jane is skeptical, but Tony Stark makes an excellent fairy godmother. Taking a job at Avengers Tower might be the most fun Darcy’ll ever have.





	1. Ka-boom!

**Author's Note:**

> I own nothing!

“What do you think?” Darcy Lewis said, pinning the rhinestone brooch on her sweater.

“What are we doing and why do you have one of my science textbooks on your head?” Jane Foster asked, looking up from her laptop screen. She blinked at Darcy and frowned. “What are you wearing?”

“The same thing I’ve been wearing since 9:42am, when I came into the lab, Jane. I’m doing the bombshell project thingie, remember? Working on my sex appeal?” Darcy said. She was wearing a pencil skirt and a snug green sweater. She had put on a brooch because Laren Stover said brooches were “invitations to appreciate your beauty” or something like that? She’d been obsessed with Stover’s book forever: _The Bombshell Manual of Style._ It was all about the style tricks, habits, and quirks of classic Hollywood stars. Very tongue-in-cheek. Darcy had decided to follow some of the practices in the book, just give herself a little _oomph_. The textbook on her head was for posture. She needed to stand up straight, so she could get the full benefit of her new bullet bra.

“That is sexist,” Jane groused.

“You think everything is sexist,” Darcy pointed out. “Including cute shoes.”

“They’re just designed to make your butt stick out!” Jane insisted.

“Is it working? How’s my butt?” Darcy said, turning. The textbook fell off her head. “Damn!” she said, as it _clonked_ to the floor. It was a big book.

“Who said butt?” Tony Stark said, poking his head into Jane’s lab.

“Me!” Darcy said. “How’s mine?”

“Excellent,” Tony said. “You’re not going to sue me for saying that, are you?”

“Nope, I’m giving myself a bombshell makeover,” Darcy said, handing him her copy of the guide.

“Is this about Fish n Chips?” Tony asked. That was his nickname for Ian.

“Yes,” she said. Darcy and Ian had recently split after a years-long, on-and-off relationship that included one broken engagement, multiple continents, his mother referring to Darcy as “that American girl” to her face for a year, and one case of bedbugs on what was supposed to be a romantic trip to France. Ian was cheap. Well, he called it _thrifty_ , but that French hotel had had big, clangy metal doors. Darcy suspected it was really a rehabbed French jail. Hence, bedbugs.

She’d finally called it a day after the bedbugs and the birthday present earrings that had turned her ears green. She wasn’t greedy, but she was offended that Ian always brought himself expensive Mac laptops, hiking gear, and other things he wanted, but cheaped out when it came to her. She could see the writing on the wall there. In a tearful phone call with her southern grandmother, Grandma Lewis had inhaled, exhaled, and said, “Honey, if somebody don’t put you first at the beginning, you’ll be last at the end, that I can tell you. Your grandpa had his flaws--the man liked his liquor and had the patience of a gnat--but it would have killed him to think somebody was treatin’ you like this. Find someone better.”

So, Darcy had broken up with Ian and Jane had taken a lucrative year-long contract with Stark Industries in NYC, just to put an ocean between Ian and Darcy. That was how Jane ended up listening to Tony Stark decide to become Darcy’s new fairy godmother.

“I want to be, like, Marilyn Monroe or Liz Taylor, just for fun,” Darcy told him. She’d put the textbook back on her head and was trying to point her boobs in the right direction.

“Awesome,” Tony said. “How can I help?”

“You want to help?” Jane said, dumbfounded.

“Absolutely, I love to help,” Tony said. “Let’s take you to the Cherie vault. This sounds like something she would have appreciated.”

“Who?” Darcy said.

“My dad’s favorite ex? Cherie Lane. Total bombshell. She danced with Blaze Starr and Lili St. Cyr?” Tony said. “I have some of her things.”

“Who?” Jane said.

“Burlesque dancers,” Darcy said, taking the textbook off her head. “Marilyn Monroe supposedly stole her look from Lili St.Cyr!”

“So, you wanna see the vault?” Tony said.

“Definitely,” Darcy said. “Jane, put down the Science! It’s _glamour-time_!”

“That’s a terrible pun, Lewis,” Tony said. “You really need this, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do,” Darcy said.

“I have a bad feeling, a really bad feeling,” Jane said, as she shut the lab door.

“Where is the Cherie vault?” Darcy asked on the elevator.

“Her old apartment in the Campanile,” Tony said. “JARVIS, call us a car downstairs, please?”

“Yes, sir,” the AI said. “Frederic will be driving you.”

“Excellent. Tom from yesterday refused to go through any yellow lights, he’s no fun,” Tony said.

“I will make a note that you prefer Frederic, sir,” JARVIS said.

“You own her apartment?” Jane said.

“Dad bought it for her. He would haunt me if I sold the place, I think,” Tony said. “They were on a break in 1965 when she married a guy in Europe, never came back. I think it broke his heart.”

“That doesn’t sound like anyone we know,” Jane said _sotto voice._ She meant Pepper and Tony, of course. They were on a break currently and Pepper was living in San Francisco right now.

“I heard that, Foster,” Tony said. “She’s very lecture-y for someone who claims that teaching makes her miserable,” he told Darcy.

“Uh-huh,” Darcy said.

“Pffht,” Jane scoffed. “I didn’t say teaching, I said grading. Totally different.”

“So,” Tony said, as they got off the elevator, “Itty Bitty”--that was his nickname for Darcy--”are you going to look for a sugar daddy after your makeover?”

“Hmm,” Darcy considered out loud.

“Oh, God--” Jane groaned.

“Maybe,” Darcy said. “I’ve never been with anybody who spent money on me?”

“Oh, that’s right, Fish n Chips gave you those gangrene earrings, Natasha told me about that,” Tony said. “She might have ideas. She likes to matchmake.”

“I’m game,” Darcy said.

“Such a bad feeling,” Jane muttered as they got into the car.

“I’m going to make a music playlist for this trip,” Darcy announced.

  
***

Darcy’s Classic Bombshell Music Playlist:

  1. Eartha Kitt, “My Heart Belongs To Daddy.”
  2. Marilyn Monroe, “Do It Again.”
  3. Peggy Lee, “Johnny Guitar.”
  4. Julie London, “Go Slow.”
  5. Eartha Kitt, “Just An Old Fashioned Girl.”
  6. Peggy Lee, “Black Coffee.”
  7. Billie Holiday, “I’m A Fool to Want You.”
  8. April Stevens, “Teach Me Tiger.”
  9. Julie London, “Why Don’t You Do Right.”
  10. Doris Day, “Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps.”
  11. Julie London, “Love Must Catchin’ On.”
  12. Marilyn Monroe, “A Fine Romance.”



  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two goals for this fic:  
> 1\. Let Darcy have some post-Ian fun! (No idea who with/how any romantic pairings will happen)  
> 2\. Explore how the happy Howard Stark of CA: TFA becomes the bitter, un-fun older Howard of the IM/CA: CW movies. I'm not entirely up on my "Agent Carter," so I don't know if it's explained there, but it's a BIG shift, right?
> 
> The Bombshell Manual of Style is a real book and I am a HUGE fan of Laren Stover's work. She's incredible! Buy her books!
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Bombshell-Manual-Style-Laren-Stover/dp/0786866942


	2. Hello, Gorgeous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos!

**Los Angeles, CA**

**1953**

“Annnnnnd that’s all!” Cherie sang. She turned her back to the audience and tossed the last piece of flashy, sequined lingerie--her brassiere--in the air. It glittered in the stage light. Looking over her shoulder, apparently topless, the blonde burlesque dancer blew a kiss. ”Have a wonderful evening!”

The audience was hooting, applauding, and screaming. “Cherie, I love you!” someone screamed from the floor. The curtain fell and so did Cherie’s glossy smile.

“He sounds like trouble,” she told the stagehand bringing her the bathrobe. She had on round pasties underneath her stage brasserie and a pair of panties. It was technically illegal to be fully nude in a show.

“We’ll handle it,” the stagehand said, “but Howard Stark has planted himself in your dressing room.”

“Did he bribe Melvin?” Cherie said. Melvin was the club manager. He was a heel.

“Sorry,” the stagehand said. Sighing, Cherie threw on the bathrobe in the wings and walked to her dressing room. She opened the door abruptly.

“Hello, Gorgeous,” he said, looking up. Howard Stark was sitting in a chair. 

“This is a private dressing room, Mr. Stark, and you have no invitation,” she said crisply.

“Melvin said it was all right. Hungry? Why not have dinner with me tonight?” he said.

“No thank you,” Cherie said. She reached for her stage kit on the mirrored vanity. She used vaseline to make her creme lipstick glossy, but it tended to smudge. She dabbed it off, along with some of her stage makeup.

“You know, I’ve met girls who graduated from Miss Porter’s School who don’t have your elocution,” he said. Miss Porter’s was a famed boarding school for wealthy young women.

“Well, I learned mine from a man who worked at a soda fountain,” Cherie said dryly. Howard laughed. It was true: Cherie was originally from Abilene. When she’d first moved west, hoping to make it as an actress, she’d hung out at a particular drug store near the movie studios. It was what all the aspiring extras did. You were nearby if something, anything became available. The soda jerk had mocked her broad Abilene accent, especially the way she’d asked for “a soft drink.” That’s what they called it back home; hard drinks were liquor. He'd said she talked like a hayseed. Allegedly. She’d never heard her own accent. Her screen test had never come in, but she’d smoothed the accent away.

“You must eat sometime,” Howard said.

“Mostly on the hoof. Go home, Mr. Stark. Or wherever. You don’t have to go home--”

“But I can’t stay here?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” she said, trying not to smile. He was doing that heartbroken puppy face. Howard Stark had a lot of practice. That look, Cherie knew, had led dozens, if not hundreds, of unaware women astray. “I’m sure there are other venues and other companions, Mr. Stark,” she told him, not unkindly. Just professionally. Cherie had no time for being his plaything. She had to pack for a show in San Francisco. She and five other dancers were going up by train for a two-week engagement at a nightclub there. She would have a half a homemade cheese sandwich that her roommate Annie (professional name: Dixie Delafort) was probably sneaking onto the train. She’d spring for two cups of coffee as a thank-you, of course.

“Why can’t I?” he asked, looking sadly up at her.

“Because Dolores’s routine starts in twenty minutes and she needs this room,” Cherie said, finally smiling. Howard smiled back. She frowned. “And you’re sitting on my travel suit, you heel. I pressed that this morning. Get up,” she told him. It was hung over the back of the chair where Howard was sprawled.

“Sorry. I was dazzled by your beauty.”

“Sure you were, it’s not like the rich have a reputation for being careless,” she said. Cherie’s older sister had been a WAC. Like the servicemen, they’d received copies of cheap paperbacks during the war. Cherie had read all of them when Hettie brought them back home to Abilene in 1946. “I do have to pack,” she told him seriously.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Frisco, child,” she said. “Don’t bother inviting yourself along, it’s strictly a girl’s trip.”

“I do know a nice hotel there,” he said, smiling winningly.

“Jolly, invite Miss California or something,” she told him.

“You’re breaking my heart, Cherie Lane,” Howard said.

“They finally located it?” she asked.

He insisted on driving her to the station. It saved her the walk or waiting on a dodgy ride from Melvin, who thought being club manager justified his grabby hands, so she agreed. Cherie was tall--five-seven and built like Jane Russell--so she felt like she could put Howard in his place. Unlike Melvin, he couldn’t fire her, either. “Isn’t this a nice car?” Howard asked her.

“It’s very blue,” she told him.

“Atomic turquoise, I had it special ordered,” he said. “Why don’t you ever say yes to me?”

“Because young ladies who get in the habit of saying yes usually end up with toddlers who don’t listen to no, Mr. Stark,” she said politely. He laughed.

“That’s a good line,” he said.

“I’m virtuous and clever,” she said.

“Rare combination,” he said.

“You should visit a library more often, Mr. Stark. The librarians are excellent women who meet my definition with frequency,” she said dryly.

“Librarians, huh?” he said.

“My sister is a librarian in Waco,” she told him.

“So, she was the good sister, huh?” he said.

“You make assumptions, Mr. Stark,” she said. Hettie had actually been the family wild child, not her. Cherie--whose legal name was still Eunice--had been quiet and shy. But she’d liked to sing and dance. It was ironic: once upon a time, she’d sang in church and danced ballet recitals in Miss Josephson’s studio, while Hettie snuck out with boys and smoked cigarettes. Now Hettie was a librarian.

“You were the good sister?” he said, grinning.

“Of course,” she said. It wasn’t strictly true that she was a girl of perfect virtue; she had a healthy interest in sex like anybody else and a diaphragm in her handbag. But Howard Stark had a reputation to rival Howard Hughes for womanizing. Men like that were usually no good in bed. Too busy with quantity to work on their own quality, she thought. She refrained from expressing that out loud, however.

When he walked her to the train, he pressed a bit of cash into her palm. “What is this for?” she asked.

“Travel expenses?” he said. “Buy a nice dress or something? Take your friends to lunch?”

“I’m not taking your money, Mr. Stark,” she said.

“Consider it a loan,” he said.

“What if I don’t like your demands for collateral?” she said archly.

“I’ll hire you to write my jokes,” he said.

“Sure you will,” Cherie said, shaking her head.

"It's only money," he said.

"A phrase only spoken by those who've never lived without," she said wryly.

"There are worse things you can live without," he said. She couldn't tell if he was being serious or putting her on. She knew he'd spent years looking for Captain America, after all. "Enjoy your trip," he said.

"It's work, Howard, I don't vacation."

The other women were peering out the train’s window when she climbed on board and Howard waved goodbye. He blew her a kiss. Cherie had to laugh.

“That’s Howard Stark!” Annie said to her. “He’s rich as Midas.”

“I’d cultivate that friendship if I were you,” Joan said. Joan was rather hard-eyed about that sort of thing, but Cherie blamed that on losing her husband in the war. She’d truly loved Herbert and was just killing time with all the men who sent them gifts and took them to dinner and...whatever you felt like doing after dinner, were you so inclined.

“You’re too mercenary, Jo,” Cherie said. “Besides, doesn’t Midas come to a bad end?”

“I think so?” Annie said.

“Hell if I know,” Jo said. “But he could buy you a new apartment.”

“I’d rather have a cheese sandwich,” Cherie said. “I’m starving.”

“He saw you off at the train, I think that’s nice,” Annie said, handing her the contraband sandwich.

“You’re too nice a girl, Annie,” Cherie said.

“You don’t think it’s sweet?” Annie said.

“This world’s gonna eat her alive,” Jo said, as Cherie started to hum.

“What’s that one?” Annie asked. Cherie always hummed when she ate. They’d developed a game of guessing the song, just to pass the time.

“I’ll Be Seeing You,” Jo said, recognizing the tune. “Don’t you collapse on me, Lane. There’s no room for romance in this business.”

“I am a tower of strength,” Cherie vowed.

***

**New York City**

**Present Day**

“So,” Tony said, unlocking the door. “This is it. The apartment my dad brought Cherie when she agreed to move to New York. Well, more or less. I think she still did some traveling shows.”

“Wow,” Jane said. The Campanile was a luxury building. Greta Garbo had lived there for decades, two floors up.

“She was actually pretty famous, back in the day,” Tony explained. “Notorious? What's the right word? She paid him back for the apartment, once she had a big show in New York and a few projects.”

“She paid him back?” Darcy said.

“It was during a fight,” Tony explained. “She sent him forty grand in a suitcase to his office. She was very good with money, very careful about her investments.”

“What happened?” Jane said.

“He carried it back and deeded the apartment to her anyway,” Tony said.

“How’d you end up with it, then?” Darcy asked.

“When she married the other guy, she sent all his stuff back: jewelry, the deed, his letters, the whole bit.”

“That must have hurt him,” Darcy said.

“He put it all here and kept it, but I don’t know that he ever looked at it,” Tony said, walking around and turning on all the lights and removing the furniture covers. The apartment had a lavender and silver theme.

“It’s beautiful,” Darcy said. Nothing had been changed: plush carpets, pale wood furniture, old-fashioned landscapes, and damask covered sofas. They matched the shades on the light fixtures. It was all very matchy and designed to maximize the apartment’s views of the East River.

“Kitchen’s that way,” Tony said. “I can send you food, if you’d like to say here?”

“Stay here?” Darcy said.

“Why not? Nobody’s spent the night in this place for decades, you should. Somebody should,” he said. Darcy wandered around a corner.

“Why not sell?” Jane asked, staring at the view from the living room. “It’s probably worth millions, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I think Dad would never forgive me, really. He hung onto to this place for sentimental reasons.”

“Is this her?” Jane asked. There was a portrait above the fireplace of a very pretty woman.

“Nah, that was her mother. Or her sister? One of her relatives? She had it painted from a photograph. Cherie was blonde,” he said. “Where’d Darcy go?”

“We’ve lost her,” Jane joked.

“Hello, gorgeous,” Darcy said out loud, looking at the view of the river from Cherie’s bedroom. She’d gone in and opened the damask drapes. It was breathtaking. Tony found her sitting on the bed, looking a little dazed. “This place is amazing,” she said.

“Yeah. My dad probably had sex on that bed, though,” he said.

Famous Howards Who Hit on Cherie Lane:

  1. Howard Stark
  2. Howard Hughes
  3. Howard Abbot, owner of Abilene’s biggest car dealership



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm giving Cherie an apartment like Greta Garbo's at the Campanile. So beautiful! Such a fun place for Darcy to crash for a bit:  
> https://ny.curbed.com/2017/3/22/15028418/greta-garbo-nyc-apartment-for-sale-campanile


End file.
